Doing What Comes Naturally

I was in search of something. Something I haven’t actually found. But that search led to something that I’ve been meaning to do. Something I just haven’t gotten to in the midst of just trying to keep up as wife, mother, housekeeper, chief cook and part-time office manager. Namely, clean the basement.

Our basement really isn’t that dirty. Not for an unfinished basement. It has its dirt. Its spider webs. And lots of sawdust that falls from the beams we walk on and I exercise over. Truly, it needs a good sweep with a broom. But first I needed to go through, consolidate and move some boxes into neater piles.

The something I was after I hoped was in one of the boxes. In one of Ed’s boxes. Since the stuff in the basement is stuff we don’t use most of the year (the Christmas décor and fine china do find their way upstairs at least once in twelve months), it’s still very segregated as his and mine. Most of mine is very neatly packed away because it never saw the light of day when I moved in. Ed’s has been scrounged through and tossed back in no particular order. Something that sorely needs to be remedied so I (and he) even knows where it can be found should we need it. So we don’t have to search like this again.

Searching for one thing led to another. I started going through his boxes – tossing things that we don’t need (empty envelopes from five years ago?), putting aside things I know we will keep but needs further sorting, and starting a pile of lets-go-through-this-together-and-toss-what-we-really-don’t-need. Already the basement is looking much better and I hope will be in perfect order by the end of next week.

Sorting, tossing and packing is something I find to be quite natural. My siblings will attest to this. Quite loudly thanks to a certain round puzzle. The only round puzzle we owned. (And just to set the record straight, it was MY puzzle to get rid of. Not that that seems to matter. Talk about a guilt trip.) If I have to find or sort something, what should be an hour job quickly grows into three or four. I mean, if you’re going to sort then do it so you won’t have to do it again.

Sorting, tossing and packing are natural to a military-brat. I think it’s something we either breathe in the military hospital we were born in or they inoculate it with us in the nursery. Either way, we can do it in our sleep.

But when it comes to a needle and thread…well, I didn’t get that strand of DNA from my mom. Being the amazingly wonderful mother that she is, my mom did teach me how to sew. I spent several hours cross-stitching. I can awkwardly find my way around a sewing machine. (Seam rippers, on the other hand, are off limits. Unless you want to buy stock in them. We won’t mention how many I’ve broken…) But since leaving home, I’ve hardly touched a needle or thread. Except to sew a button or two and painstakingly stitch a torn hem.

Let’s just say that if you feel embarrassed in front of your three-month old daughter, you’re in need of some serious practice. I probably shouldn’t have even been attempting to thread a needle and stitch a torn seam in one of Ed’s t-shirts in front of wide-eyed Emry. It might ruin any future she has in being a seamstress. For even though the task was completed, we won’t say how long it took or how un-professional it looked.

Some things are natural. Others are not. Such is life.